Letter to Mark Neumann

Mr. Neumann,

I’m not sure how I was put on your mailing list for contributions, as I have never to my recollection voted for a Republican candidate and hardly intend to now. The letter’s claim that I have a “history of voting in Republican Primary elections” and support “conservative candidates and political organizations” is quite humorous. I firmly support Tom Barrett.

You will be pleased to know my mother enjoys your television ads, though I’m fairly confident you’ll lose the primary to Scott Walker. This would be most fortuitous for me, as Walker’s credentials are pretty drab. Though, of course, yours rely largely on your being a representative from 1995-1999, a brief stint over ten years ago.

What inspires me to write you is my disappointment in your letter and survey. I feel that candidates of either (or any) party should run on facts and not on rhetoric. Your letter has very little substance, and not even much style. It’s hyperbole and misleading distortions.

You ask in your survey if people want taxes reduced. Of course they do, but at what cost? What would you cut, or would you run the deficit even further? Cutting taxes is a popular but foolish plan. The survey asks if the taxes should be raised or lowered. You know quite well no one will say to raise them.

You refer to the health care reform as “ObamaCare” and say it is a “radical new federal mandate” and an “unfair Congressional action”. First, this connection with Obama is misleading and used as a scare tactic. He didn’t write the bill, and it didn’t even have some of the features he wanted. It was a bill from the legislative branch. And it’s hardly “radical” — this is not universal health care (unfortunately). It’s tweaks here and there that most people will not notice, and those who do will probably like what they see (its fairness). You can hope the attorney general sues to block it, but as more people are aware of what it contains, they will turn against you.

You call Governor Doyle a failure because there is now a “fearful and demoralized population” (which is news to me) and “a loss of jobs”. You are the one pushing for a free market — the free market is where jobs go to die. Job loss is due to a poor economy and business decisions, not any thing Doyle did (unless you can point to evidence to the contrary).

I agree with the idea of “slashing redundant and unnecessary spending” and “excessive government regulations”, but what do you mean by this? You call for a move away from “pro-bureaucrat reforms” for a free market approach, but this implies that business is not a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy by definition is “any organization in which action is obstructed by insistence on unnecessary procedures and red tape”… which could just as easily apply to insurance companies or other large groups.

Your plea to defend “our most vulnerable citizens” (“innocent unborn babies”) is a farce. Whether unborn babies are citizens or not is debatable… but your exploitation of them for political gain is assured. There is absolutely nothing you can do to overturn Roe v. Wade. As long as that remains true, you have very little influence on the abortion debate and any pro-life proclamations are cheap attempts to get votes from “values voters” who don’t realize you will not sign a single bill into law that helps their cause.

I take issue with the suggestion that environmental policy consists of “job-killing regulations”. What is this claim based on? I do not find that regulations “kill” jobs, but I have found that they tend to cut down on health problems… a cost-saving measure for everyone in the long run.

Let’s not even start talking about concealed carry. I would simply ask you to compare crime statistics of states that have it with those that do not. Mathematically, it’s a poor idea. (Though I have no interest in banning any sort of gun, no matter how big or small.)

You call “traditional marriage” a “moral issue”. I can’t really grasp that connection.

Again, I do not think you will win and you will not be receiving a vote for me in the primary or the general elections. If by some miracle you win, you can look forward to my persistent gadfly activities ruining your day. Wisconsin has come too far to start sliding back now.